Third-World Britain?
Galloway faces Commons suspension
George Galloway is facing suspension
from Parliament for 18 days,
after an inquiry by its standards watchdog. MPs said he "damaged the
reputation of the House" in his comments about the inquiry into his
Mariam Appeal charity. The suspension was the result of him "concealing
the true source of Iraqi funding" and "calling into question" the
integrity of standards watchdogs. The anti-war Respect MP said he had
been punished for his "robust" defence by "a jury of my political
enemies".
Thompson backed 'to change BBC'
Director general Mark Thompson has been
backed by the BBC's Trust to reform the corporation following the
admission that a series of phone-ins were faked. Chairman Sir
Michael Lyons said Mr Thompson is "the right person to lead change",
adding he was "confident that he will do it". But he told BBC Radio 4's
Today programme they would "suspend judgement until we have seen
improvement". Serious editorial breaches were found in six shows,
including Comic Relief. Sir Michael warned that the Trust would be
"watching very carefully" to ensure the correct sanctions were applied.
"We will come back in a year's time to make sure the BBC is a different
place to the one it is today," he added.
Who cares
By Geoff Adams-Spink, Age and
disability correspondent, BBC News website
Having a degree and excellent skills count for little if you are
disabled and live in residential care. Why? If your CV read like Doug
Paulley's, you would probably expect to spend a lifetime as a
high-earning IT professional. First-class degree, excellent IT skills,
head-hunted more than once as a web designer, age 29. Doug Paulley in a
garden. Doug Paulley whiles away his time but could be working in IT
But the reality for Mr Paulley is that he is likely to while away his
days in a residential home and is highly unlikely to be drawing a
salary. He has a problem with his autonomic nervous system which means
that he has a tendency to pass out at any time; he has had a couple of
strokes and uses a wheelchair. He needs to have help on call and his
local social services in West Yorkshire say the only way of providing
that is for him to be in an institution. Living in a Leonard Cheshire
home with other disabled people in Wetherby, he has a young man's
desires and aspirations, and bitterly resents - but fully understands -
the institution's need to run to a rigid timetable.
Halt e-voting, says election body
Web and phone voting pilots should be
stopped until security and testing have been improved, the Electoral
Commission has said. It said much has been learnt from recent pilots,
but added that "there is little merit" in holding more. Thirteen pilots
were held during May's local elections in England.
Foreign investors 'pick Britain'
Britain remains the favourite European
destination for foreign investment, according to a report. It won 686
projects in 2006, a 23% rise on the year before and accounting for 19%
of all foreign investment deals in Europe, according to Ernst &
Young. More than half of these - 361 - were in London and the South
East. Scotland also fared well in terms of attracting overseas
investment, almost doubling the number of deals from 33 in 2005 to 63
in 2006. The European Investment Monitor found most British investment
came from the US, but noted that levels were growing from Brazil,
Russia, India and China.
Miliband defends UK-US relations
David
Miliband
Foreign Secretary David Miliband has insisted that the US will continue
to be the UK's "single most important bilateral partner in the world".
His assertion comes in the wake of comments from two other ministers
which hinted at cooler relations between the two nations.
Writing in the News of the World, Mr Miliband said there would be no
change from Tony Blair's approach.
He said that people were just looking for "cracks" in the "vital" bond.
His statement comes after new Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch
Brown claimed the UK and the US would no longer be "joined at the hip"
on foreign policy.
He told the Daily Telegraph it was time for a more "impartial" foreign
policy and to build relationships with European leaders.
Strategic split or messy divorce?
ANALYSIS, By Mike Baker
If the Department for Education and Skills had been a family, then this
week's momentous changes would amount to a divorce, with potentially
serious implications for the children. The youngest child, called
Schools, is staying with one parent. The oldest sibling, called
Universities, is moving out with the other. With one parent giving each
its undivided attention, there may be some gains. But where does that
leave the middle child, known as Further Education?
Governator's' screen presence
Brian
Wheeler
BBC News, at the Conservative Party
conference
Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conservative
party conference video link
Sunday in the Winter Gardens felt a
little like Oscars night
"I
hope to be there in person next year."
It wasn't quite as snappy - or
spine-chilling - as "I'll be back", but
for David Cameron, eager to sprinkle a bit of Hollywood stardust over
the first day of his party's annual conference, it was the best he was
going to get. Action hero-turned-California governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger had been due to appear in Blackpool in the flesh. He was
apparently a regular here during the 1970s, in his bodybuilding days.
But we had to make do with a straight-to-video link Arnold on Sunday,
after political commitments confined him to base.
World owes US a debt, says Brown
The world owes a debt to the United
States for its leadership in the
fight against international terrorism, Gordon Brown has said.
Petraeus briefing a matter of strategy
General David Petraeus, the top US
commander in Iraq, is due in London
to brief UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, fresh from his week giving
testimony to Congress about the US troop "surge".
BBC
diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus examines Britain's role in
Iraq.
Poor 'do not have a worse diet'
People on low incomes have similar
diets to the rest of the population, a government report states.
The Food Standards Agency found that contrary to popular belief,
nutrition, access to food and cooking skills are not much different in
poorer families.
However, the agency pointed out that the whole population was not
eating as healthily as it should be.
Public health experts said the results were surprising but showed
everyone needed to eat a better diet.
Fears over child poverty target
By Kim Catcheside
BBC social affairs correspondent
Back
in 1999 the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, promised to halve
the number of poor children in 10 years and to eradicate child poverty
in 20 years.
It was hugely
ambitious, but in the glow of the new
Labour government's extended honeymoon it seemed somehow to be possible.
Now disillusioned anti-poverty campaigners are asking if
the government
is still serious about its promise.
"We want to believe",
says the chief
executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, Kate Green.
"But on the current
rates of spending on tax credits and
benefits there's no way the government is going to halve child poverty
by the end of the decade."
Simple band could cut hospital bugs
By
Jane Elliott
BBC News, health reporter
Two
recently qualified doctors believe they could have found an important
weapon in the fight against hospital acquired infection - and it costs
just pence.
Hospital bugs are a serious problem in
the UK - a recent report estimates that these infections cost the NHS
as much as £1bn each year.
When Drs Ryan Kerstein and Christian
Fellowes were studying at Imperial College they noticed that
tourniquets - used to cause veins to expand to enable blood samples to
be taken or drips inserted, were being used again and again.
Around 40 million procedures using a
tourniquet are performed each year.
Trafficking
misery for enslaved girls
by
Alison Holt, Social affairs correspondent, BBC News
"Sarah" is giggling into her mobile -
she could be any other 21-year-old trying to arrange where to meet her
friends, but this sort of freedom is still new for her.
At the age of 12 she was trafficked to
the UK into a life of domestic slavery.
"I was told I would have a better
life," Sarah tells me quietly. We've changed her name to protect her
identity.
She describes how she was taken from
school by a stranger and put on a plane from Nigeria to London.
'I was
sold for 2,000 euros'
Anna is one of an estimated 4,000 woman
thought to have been trafficked into the UK into a life of prostitution.
Here, she describes how she was forced
to have sex and faced ice-cold baths, starvation and beatings if she
did not do as she was told.
When Anna was just 12, she ran away
from her home in Albania after befriending an older man.
He obtained forged papers for her and
took her to Hamburg in Germany where he coerced her into prostitution.
After four years selling herself for
sex, she was hidden in a lorry and trafficked into the UK where she was
sold on for 2,000 Euros and employed in a brothel.
The rising peril of crack cocaine
Once the scourge of
sink estates in the UK's largest cities, crack
cocaine has now spread all over the UK, according to a senior police
officer.
The drug is highly addictive, blights lives, and
destroys communities - and according to Sean Price, Chief Constable of
Cleveland, use is now at its highest ever level.
Burning chilli sparks terror fear
A
pot of burning chilli sparked fears of a biological terror attack in
central London.
Firefighters wearing protective breathing apparatus were called to
D'Arblay Street, Soho, after reports of noxious smoke filling the air.
Police closed off three roads and evacuated homes following the alert.
Specialist crews broke down the door to the Thai Cottage restaurant at
1900 BST on Monday where they discovered the source - a 9lb pot of
chillies.
Nam
Prik Pao recipe
Heat garlic and shallots in oil and
remove to a bowl
Place red chillies in the pan with some oil and fry until they go dark
in colour. Then set aside
Mix shrimp paste with the rest of the ingredients and pound in a mortar
and pestle
Return the mixture to the heat until it becomes a thick dark coloured
paste
The restaurant had been preparing Nam Prik Pao, a red-hot Thai dip
which uses extra-hot chillies which are deliberately burnt.
But the smell prompted several members of the public to call the
emergency services.
MPs query Olympic cost to Lottery
The
government must reveal how much money is to be diverted from
heritage projects to pay for the London Olympics in 2012, MPs have said.
Official estimates suggest the Heritage Lottery Fund's
annual income will fall by £57m to £180m by 2009/10. But the Commons public accounts committee said there
were "major areas of uncertainty" and called for a "frank assessment"
of the situation. The government said it would
consider the MPs' recommendations.
'Cash crisis' for science centres
Science
education centres around the UK face serious financial threats and some
have already closed, MPs have warned.
The science and technology select committee wants the
government to give centres at risk short-term funding.
Two of the centres which were funded by the Millennium
Commission - Doncaster's Earth Centre and Ayrshire's Big Idea - have
already closed, its report says.
The loss of such centres is a threat
to science education, it says. Ministers say they will respond "in due
course".
The report, the Funding of Science and Discovery
Centres, says that these centres make a valuable contribution to the
public's engagement with science - but there are serious financial
problems.
Call for major science campaign
Physics
The report highlights the drop in the
number of physics A-level students
A major campaign to boost the teaching of science and technology is
needed if the UK is to keep its place in the global economy, a key
report warns.
Lord Sainsbury's Review of Science said there was a danger of a "race
to the bottom", unless British firms moved into high value goods and
services.
The UK had a good science record but needed to boost it quickly, he
added.
End of a divided school system?
ANALYSIS
By Mike Baker
Is
there a major revolution stirring among England's independent schools?
Have they rediscovered their social
conscience or are they just finding new ways to survive in
cash-strapped times?
This week Birkenhead High School became the fifth independent,
fee-charging school to announce its intention to become a state-funded
city academy.
Like all schools taking this route, this involves abandoning two of the
most characteristic features of independent schools - fees and academic
selection. However, the school will retain its independence in all
other matters.
UK made 'fundamental space mistake'
By Irene Klotz
Cape Canaveral, Florida
The UK's decision to shun human
spaceflight was a mistake that needs to be changed, says Europe's
International Space Station programme chief. But with Nasa on the verge
of ending its shuttle programme and the Russian Soyuz capsules
overbooked, it will not be easy to reverse course, warns Alan
Thirkettle, a Brit who left the country to head European Space Agency
(Esa) projects.
"I think it's a fundamental mistake," Thirkettle said in an interview
with the BBC News website. "They've totally blown it." He was speaking
in Florida where preparations are underway for the launch of Esa's
Columbus module. The laboratory is scheduled to be flown to the
International Space Station (ISS) in December. Thirkettle says the UK
decided in the early 1980s to only contribute to space programmes that
were of immediate financial benefit to industry, such as communication
satellites - but believes this was short-sighted. It had left Britain
inexperienced in technologies of long-term benefit, such as life
support systems, which would be useful in dozens of Earth-based
applications as well as for space travel, he said. <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7072021.stm>
National Trust against homes plan
The National Trust is to set itself up
in direct opposition to the Government's house building programme.
Gordon Brown has pledged 3m more homes by 2020 to tackle the housing
crisis. But the Chairman of the Trust is expected to tell the
organisation's AGM later that this scale of development would destroy
the countryside. Sir William Proby will suggest the Trust intervenes in
planning inquiries and buy greenfield land to protect it from house
building.
The Government insists that green-belt land is safe. It says the boom
in house building would take place on brownfield sites and areas owned
by the public sector.
Army accident immunity 'must end'
By David Connett
5Live Report
Families of soldiers killed or maimed
in non-combat incidents are calling for the MoD to lose its immunity to
prosecution over health and safety. Serious failings are going
unpunished leading to dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries each
year, according to relatives. Compensation payments are costing
taxpayers millions of pounds a year. The MoD says it learns lessons
from accidents and continually strives to improve health and safety
performance. But critics believe Crown immunity is preventing defence
officials from being properly held to account for its poor health and
safety record. <
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7076328.stm>
Migration row Tory to be quizzed
The
Conservative party chairman is to seek an explanation later from
a candidate who declared that Enoch Powell was "right" on immigration.
Nigel Hastilow, who will
contest Halesowen
and Rowley Regis, made the comments in a newspaper column. The chairman
of the local Conservative Association said Mr Hastilow was "relaying
the views of the public" Enoch Powell was sacked from the shadow
cabinet after a controversial speech in 1968 against uncontrolled
immigration.
A Tory spokesman said candidates of all parties should take "great
care" when discussing immigration. He added that Mr Hastilow "will be
told this in clear
terms" during the meeting with party chairman Caroline Spelman in
London on Sunday.
Is the credit crunch finally over?
It has been a dramatic week on the
financial markets, with the US central bank cutting interest rates and
the UK government coming to the rescue of savers at the Northern Rock.
So is the crisis over, or are there still some big problems remaining?
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7003139.stm>
Market jitters and your pocket
Stock markets around the world have
been in turmoil in recent days on
fears that the crisis in the US housing market could undermine the
global economy.
The FTSE 100 - the index of the UK's largest publicly quoted companies
- fell more than 4% in a single day on Thursday.
It is feared that a squeeze on credit - the amount of money circulating
in the banking system - could hurt companies and consumers.
But what does this market turbulence mean for your own personal
finances?
Fresh rules to guarantee savings
The scheme to protect savers with money
deposited in UK banks and
building societies has been expanded.
Under the guarantee - promised after the run on Northern Rock -
customers' first £35,000 are now fully protected.
Chancellor Alistair Darling told the BBC that this was the first stage
of a wider process to reform the system that protects UK savers.
New legislation could protect savings of up to £100,000 and
specially protect savers' assets should a bank go bust.
Ageism - still a grey area?
By Clare Matheson
Business reporter, BBC News
One year on from the launch of ageism laws - has the UK seen a
difference?
There's certainly been an increase in legal action - more than 2,000
tribunal claims have been filed.
And with the legal cost of cases coming in at an average £5,800 a
claim, the new laws could prove to be costly.
Meanwhile, companies have also seen an increase in grey-haired staff as
the over-65s age group is growing faster than any other in the
workplace.
Awareness of the law may have doubled, but firms are still breaking the
rules.
More pensioners declared bankrupt
The proportion of pensioners going
bankrupt has more than doubled in
five years, research has suggested.
Of bankruptcies in England and Wales during 2007, 7% involved retired
people - up from 3% in 2002, a report said
This meant 7,900 pensioners were declared bankrupt over the past year,
compared to 900 five years previously.
Money Talk
By Kellie Jones
Boodle Hatfield solicitors
Many of us may, at some point in our lives, be unable to make decisions
for ourselves, perhaps due to an accident, stroke or dementia, or will
know someone else in the same position.
Since 1985, it has been possible for people to deal with the knock on
difficulties of dealing with their financial affairs by setting up an
Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA).
This appoints someone else - their attorney - to make financial
decisions on their behalf if they lose their mental capacity.
However, from 1 October 2007 in England and Wales, when the Mental
Capacity Act 2005 is fully implemented, this changes substantially.
Its main aim is to give people greater protection when they lose their
mental faculties.
Tide power plan is 'wrong option'
A plan to generate power from Severn estuary tides would be the "wrong
option", green campaigners have said.
A report by Friends of the Earth says that the Severn Barrage would
damage the environment and wildlife habitats.
The government is studying the scheme, which it is thought could
produce up to 5% of the UK's electricity needs.
Meanwhile, the Sustainable Development Commission is due to release a
tidal power report on Monday, including the feasibility of a Severn
barrage.
The train you've been waiting for
By Nick Angel, Producer, BBC OneLife
It is considered one of the great
marketing own-goals of all time. When British Rail rebranded in the
1980s, it came up with the slogan: "We're getting there".
As leaves on the line and the wrong type of snow brought the network to
a standstill, the joke was British Rail was getting nowhere, fast.
On the face of it, Grand Central, the soon-to-launch service between
London and Sunderland, has fallen into the same metaphorical trap.
Their motto, "The train you've been waiting for", has proved horribly
appropriate.
First planned for
December 2006, a full service (three trains daily in each direction)
will now not start until late November at the very earliest.
By any measure, that is a long time to wait for a train.
Legal hurdles
And yet, whereas baiting British Rail
was a national sport, it is hard to feel the same animosity towards
Grand Central.
The last year has been exasperating. But the exasperation has always
been tinged with affection, and the reason why can be summed up in two
words - "pluck", and "Marilyn".
A tale of two commutes
By Chris Page
5live Report
How does the experience of commuters compare in Britain and Germany?
Susan from London travelled to Berlin to sample travel on Germany's
railways, while Calvin from Berlin went to London to check out the
trains and the Underground.
<
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6994719.stm>
Remove bad teachers, says adviser
Sub-standard
teachers should be removed
from schools to make way for better colleagues, a key government
education adviser has suggested.
Sir Cyril Taylor said there were about 17,000 "poor" teachers in
England.
They were unable to control classes and were damaging the education of
about 400,000 children, he told the BBC.
Ambulance crews demand stab vests
Paramedics
are being put at risk because they are not being given stab vests,
Union leaders have warned.
Health minister Ben Bradshaw said that ambulance
staff can have stab vests if health trusts deem it necessary.
But the Department of Health has received no requests
for funding for the body armour.
The Association of Professional Ambulance Personnel has
been fighting for the vests to be given to all front-line crews for 10
years.
The APAP's Jonathan Fox said escalating crime was
increasing the risk of serious injury to the paramedics who respond to
casualties.
UK terror tactics 'create unease'
The
government's approach to terrorism is creating an atmosphere of
suspicion and unease, the head of the Muslim Council of Britain has
said.
Muhammad Abdul Bari told the Daily Telegraph the
amount of debate relating to Muslims was disproportionate.
He cited Nazi Germany in the 1930s as an example of how
people's minds could be poisoned against a community.
The Home Office said it would not allow terrorists to
undermine the UK's long history of strong community relations.
Fraudsters
who resented the art market
By James Kelly
BBC News
George and Olive Greenhalgh , who
lived like paupers, admitted fraud
As a son and his elderly parents learn their fate for faking artworks
and artefacts worth millions of pounds over nearly two decades, we look
at what their motivation was.
Shaun Greenhalgh, 47, has been jailed for four years while his
83-year-old mother, Olive, has been given a 12-month suspended sentence
for her part in the con. His father, George, 84, is to be sentenced at
a later date.
For successful forgers, the trio had an unremarkable lifestyle. Despite
having £500,000 in the bank they lived "in abject poverty", said
police. Olive had never even left Bolton.
Their greatest known scam, before the law finally caught up with them,
was conning Bolton Council into buying the Amarna Princess, a phoney
ancient Egyptian statue, for more than £400,000.
Is time running out for Olympic legacy?
By June
Woolerton
BBC News
|
Work has started on the Olympic site but its
legacy remains unclear
|
In areas of east London destined to benefit from the
legacy of the
2012 Olympic games there are concerns that time is running out for the
regeneration plans to be finalised if they are to yield the hoped-for
benefits.
When London bid for the
2012 Olympic Games the
organisers promised the event wouldn't just bring the greatest sporting
show on earth to the capital.
They also pledged it would be a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to regenerate one of the poorest parts of the city - the
East End.
The five London boroughs hosting the Games want, and
need, help. In Tower Hamlets, for instance, unemployment is double the
national average. There is also a lot of pressure on housing.
King's Cross radio faults remain
Traditional firefighting uniforms were replaced
after the fire
|
Emergency services
still lack radios for use underground, 20 years
after the King's Cross train station fire led to calls for their use.
There
were calls for the new system after the fire,
which killed 31 and injured about 60, and the report into the 7 July
bombs highlighted the issue.
An emergency services radio network for underground use
is not expected to be ready until the end of 2008.
A wreath was laid at King's Cross on Sunday on behalf of
London Underground.
Staff placed it at the station's memorial plaque for the
victims of the fire, to mark the 20th anniversary of the tragedy.
It is thought a smoker's dropped match, which fell on to
an escalator and subsequently slid beneath the staircase, started the
blaze at King's Cross St Pancras station on the evening of 18 November,
1987.
 |
If hell exists, it was
on display that night
|
The blaze reached the
ticket hall and took almost six
hours to put the fire out.
Blair admits tensions with Brown
Tony
Blair has admitted there were "disagreements or tensions" with Gordon
Brown in his time as prime minister.
But Mr Blair told the
BBC his government had been
"infinitely stronger" as a result of Mr Brown's work as chancellor.
He added that he could have "gone on for a little
longer" in Downing Street but called his 10 years in power "a long
time".
Mr Brown replaced Mr Blair as prime minister in June.
Front garden searched for bodies
The bodies of Dinah McNicol (l) and Vicky
Hamilton were found last week
|
Officers searching a
house in Kent where the bodies of two teenage
girls were found have begun digging up the front garden.
Police completed their search of the ground floor
over
the weekend, and have also moved to the first floor and attic space of
the property in Margate.
The bodies of Vicky Hamilton, 15, and Dinah McNicol, 18,
were discovered at the house in Irvine Drive.
Peter Tobin, 61, has been charged in Scotland with
murdering Miss Hamilton.
Ministers under fire over records
Alistair
Darling
The government's "basic competence" has
been questioned by the Tories after the loss in the post of computer
discs with 25m people's personal details on them.
The child benefit data on them includes names, ages, bank and address
details.
'They just diagnosed a broken arm'
Graeme died after falling off his motorcycle
|
Experts
have criticised the standard of trauma care in the NHS, after a study
found too many patients were not given the right tests or seen by
suitably experienced staff after being admitted.
The McGinns had gone to bed when the
phone rang shortly before 1am.
It was a local hospital informing them their 16-year-old son Graeme had
fallen off his motorbike.
They were reassured that it was not too serious and he had just broken
his arm.
Graeme's father, Tony, 49, from Eastleaze in Swindon, said: "When we
got to hospital he seemed OK. He was conscious and he knew who we were.
"He was apologetic and just said he was thirsty and wanted a drink.
"But his condition changed very
quickly.
"He seemed to be getting aggressive.
His language was more colourful. And he started complaining of a pain
in his chest. He said someone was sitting on his chest."
Staff decided to give him a chest X-ray, but Graeme started thrashing
around and someone had to hold him down.
And just after, as Tony and his wife were stepping outside for some
fresh air, the alarm went off.
The McGinns were told staff were giving their son a heart massage as
his heart had stopped.
Do small firms really need a website?
By Alison
Swersky
Business reporter, BBC News
|
As far as
web-literate
consumers are concerned,
internet search engines generally offer the best way to track down a
local plumber or find out where the local pet shop is based.
After all, a reputable company will have its own
website, right?
Wrong.
In a world where e-trading has become as mainstream as
microwaved ready meals, it comes as a shock to many to discover that no
more than half of Britain's small to medium-sized businesses have a web
presence.
Flood report blames water company
Many
homes in Hull were damaged in the summer floods because
Yorkshire Water failed to act on warnings dating back to 1996, a
damning report says.More than 10,000
properties were affected when heavy
rains overwhelmed the city's drainage system on 25 June. An independent review says that if the water company
had
heeded warnings about a pumping station "some properties in Hull would
have not been flooded". <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/humber/7104996.stm>
Bureaucratic limbo for stranded Iraqis
- Richard Colebourn
- 19 Nov 07, 01:24 PM
BEIRUT --- Dalia
was an Iraqi administrator at the British Embassy in Baghdad until
early this year. But after her brother was kidnapped, she was followed
home from work and her parents discovered a death threat in her house,
she knew she had to leave Iraq.
She
never thought that the fact she worked for the Americans for 90 days
before joining the British Embassy might make the difference between a
more secure future and continued uncertainty.
Dalia (her name has been changed to
protect her identity) now lives
in a flat in Amman, where I interviewed her for a Newsnight report (watch
it here) on the dangers facing Iraqis who have worked with the
British and Americans.
The announcement of government assistance
to Iraqis like her was a relief. But the detail of the policy,
delivered in a
statement to the Commons by David Miliband, disappoints.
Financial
assistance is being offered to former Iraqi staff and, in some cases,
resettlement in the UK is available. Dalia badly needs it. The
Jordanians won’t allow Iraqis to work, which means she has to live off
her savings in a country with a much higher cost of living than she is
used to.
But Iraqis will only be eligible if they
worked for the British for
twelve months. Dalia worked for ten and a half months before she had to
flee. A spokesman for the Foreign Office told me that there won't be
flexibility. It looks like Dalia will miss out.
But
she has worked for the coalition in Iraq for more than ten and half
months. Prior to her job at the British Embassy, she worked since the
invasion in 2003 for USAID, the American development agency. It was the
experience she gained with the Americans that made her a valuable
employee for the British government agency she worked for in Iraq. But
the Foreign Office tell me that only employment with the British will
be taken into account.
Despite her combined length of service
with the British and American
coalition, it’s not clear she’ll be eligible for American government
assistance either. Indeed,
Sunday’s
Washington Post suggests that many of her former colleagues now in
Jordan are in a similar bureaucratic limbo.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------